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Magnesium Supplementation Personal Findings: Brain, Lungs and Asthma, Sleep, Urinary Flow, Muscle Spasms
Related: concussion, electrolytes, ethics in medicine, gears of the machine, health, magnesium, magnesium deficiency, nutrient deficiency, nutrition
Read the books that may save your life; see Your Doctor is NOT Responsible for Your Health—YOU Are! Recommended Reading to Open Your Mind and Ask the Right Questions, Because Your Life Depends On It, in particular, The Magnesium Miracle by Carolyn Dean, MD, ND @AMAZON.
Comments apply to magnesium supplementation was built-up over ~2 weeks to ~1500mg/day using magnesium citrate and magnesium L-Threonate followed by a week of supplementation using ReMag. View all posts on magnesium.
Reflecting on many past health problems, I assert that magnesium deficiency was the likely cause in whole or at least in part. I further state that not one doctor in my life has ever even mentioned magnesium deficiency*.
A few days before writing this, I informed my internist that I had *cured* myself of the need for a prescription stimulant. It drew a blank stare. The attitude and lack of interest was not much different than his response to my asthma/CBD claim where he laughed and said that some patients swore by bear grease. This doctor makes the “top doctors” list in the San Francisco Bay Area, believe it or not. He seems to be a firm believer in the one symptom/one diagnosis/one drug approach to medicine. Nor does he have a clue that Vitamin C greatly diminishes the activity of this particular medicine, a fact found in the literature and personally verified.
A Prescription for Harm: the Modus Operandi of Modern Medicine
Loserthink in Modern Medicine: Goal-Oriented instead of Systems-Oriented
Each medical issue that I detail here has been repeatedly and unequivocally shown by scientific study to be strongly correlated with magnesium deficiency yet not one doctor in 35 years ever has even mentioned magnesium to me*. While correlation is not causation, only a fool does not first address an underlying deficiency prior to doing anything else.
* Not mentioned and not tested-for. If a doctor tests for it, most will use the highly unreliable serum magnesium test instead of the much more reliable magnesium RBC test, which at least correlates strongly with the only good test, the ionized magnesium test.
Asthma
Since I acquired asthma and allergies from a nasty viral infection at the age of ~21, I have had asthma that for the first 10 years or so after was quite bad. For the past 20 years, it has largely been a “treat as needed” thing with a prescription inhaler, set off by dust or allergies or cold.
Personal experience: magnesium supplementation has calmed my lungs down very effectively so much so that I have given up the prescription inhaler. Instead of the inhaler, I used 400mg magnesium citrate when needed, such as inhaling dust in very windy conditions. I can feel the bronchospasms ease and then go away within 30 minutes. This is at least as effective as the prescription inhaler, with no side effects I have noted.
A week into using ReMag and with the pine pollen in the air heavy (I am highly allergic to it), I have lungs as open and clear in the smallest airways as I have had in three decades—and no prescription inhaler. Magnesium is a known relaxer of small airway tissues. No, the magnesium does not fully block some reaction if I get a strong puff of pollen, but the lungs quickly settle down again—unprecedented in 30 years.
Update: I no longer use or recommend (grossly overprice) ReMag because of the relatively high lead (Pb) content in ReMag. See my preferred choice now, Nutricost Magnesium Chloride hexahydrate.
Brain and memory
After a horrible time last year (lingering issues from concussion ), I resorted to a prescription stimulant for ADD and mental fatigue, lest I be financially devastated by an inability to focus or concentrate (months of very poor work are extremely discouraging, to say the least).
Personal experience: a year of that stimulant was critical. It helped with neurogenesis and brain repair, of that I am sure. But about 2 weeks after considerable magnesium supplementation, I now definitely have better brain function (attention span, alertness, concentration, etc). Not only that, I feel no desire for the stimulant (stopped it cold turkey for a week now, as I write this), though it remains to seen if I might still need it occasionally for attentional problems (one of the lingering side effects of my concussion). OTOH maybe the magnesium will completely resolve attention issue. My memory also seems stronger and I am not forgetting things—a known benefit of magnesium. The change is almost startling—I can remind myself of things and remember them later in the day, and that has been a problem for 2+ years since my concussion.
Two days into using ReMag with fairly heavy dosing, I experienced a remarkably alert day all day—focus and alertness without any prescription drug. I would liken it to a double dose of the prescription stimulant I have abandoned.
There is considerable scientific support for magnesium being neuroprotective and neuro-repairative. And yet... none of my doctors never mentioned magnesium before or after my concussion (or ever). Not internists, not ER doctors, not neurologists. Such ignorance rises to medical malpractice, damaging me more and longer than necessary (years). Ditto for the neurologists and my peripheral neuropathy. Willful ignorance is at best a rationalization unworthy of any professional. Shame on all of them.
Muscle spasms
Muscle spasms (sometimes extremely painful) have been an ongoing problem for some years now, so much so that a prescription muscle relaxant was my only recourse. There is considerable science to support the effectiveness of magnesium for muscle relaxation and elimination of muscle spasms.
Personal experience: muscle spasms GONE and muscles more limber and flexible.
Left chest wall pain/tightness
This issue is not cardiac in nature. It has been painful enough to disable me for part of a day with fatigue/pain. I suspect some kind of intercostal muscle spasm but that’s just a guess.
Personal experience: diminishing, have hardly noticed in recent 10 days, no attacks. Vanished completely after one day of ReMag and has not come back over the ensuing week.
Irregular heartbeat
When highly trained in past years, I suffered an irregular heart beat (skipped beat, then extra powerful beat), so annoying that it would keep me from sleeping. I now believe it was caused by magnesium deficiency. To test that theory, I have to attain a comparable level of fitness.
Sleep
I’ve been suffering sleep quality issues ever since my concussion.
Personal experience: waking up far less often. However, I still seem to have a body clock that is 20 hours or so, throwing me out of sync with the day. So my sleep cycle remains a problem since my concussion. I doubt that magnesium can fix a brain wiring issue, but I won’t rule out some improvement over time.
Frequent urination, difficulty urinating
Getting up to pee 5 to 10 times a night blows. That has been going on for years.
Personal experience: frequency is down to 2 to 3 times per night unless I drink a great deal of fluid or bulky food with a lot of water in it—that situation is to be expected. Flow is greatly improved, steady and without problems. This is already a sea change. It is known that calcium can be deposited in the bladder (and elsewhere) due to inadequate magnesium, and in the bladder it results in the need for frequent urination. Magnesium can steadily pull that calcium back into solution and it can then be excreted.
Coronary artery calcification / atherosclerosis / cholesterol
This one will take longer to assess and requires therapeutic doses of magnesium via ReMag. At the least, I expect to see a halt to my coronary artery calcification — I was tested this year again and saw a troubling substantial year-over-year worsening vs last year. I hope for reversal and will know in one year when I get retested.
Night vision
This has been a problem for me in recent years, and getting worse.
Personal experience: I was able to see adequately last night using the light of only (roughly) half the moon while hiking back on an 18 mile hike.
Blood pressure
Has been generally good but variable from 116/68 to 130/84. I want to see a consistent 116/68 or so. I don’t have my blood pressure monitor along this trip, so this one is a TBD.
Immune system
Only time will tell. But last year’s nasty prostate infection which resulted in horrible malaise from the nasty antibiotics are not something I care to ever repeat. I also think that some of these infections may be the direct result of magnesium deficiency weakening the immune system along with calcification in body tissues.
